So I finally got to watch this this evening... I thought it was hands down the best episode of the series. I thought it was close to the Rookies episode, but ultimately I felt it was just better. Mostly the dark/violent nature of it was what I liked.

The Gran Senator getting gunned down in the back was great, and all the Senate Guard getting shot by Sing and then the last guy getting his neck broke... Truly violent and just nice to see from Star Wars since it took a big turn away from "kiddy stuff". The whole last few episodes have been good about that.

I loved Bane though... Guy's a badass, and cold. Leaving a cliffhanger for the next season was a good idea. Even my gf was interested in what's up now.

On Ahsoka... Eh, I sorta disagree Scott. I see the whole having a padawan thing as just the way of the Jedi once they reach knighthood... You get one for a little while, and she'll move on as she's older to another master. It's kind of like Obi-Wan's line in ESB where he says to meet Yoda and claims he's the Jedi who taught him... Was Obi-Wan a padawan to Yoda at one point? He probably studied at various points in his age/training under different Jedi, but his last before the trials was Qui-Gon... Ahsoka is also being used as a test for Anakin himself, by Yoda & Co. apparantly, so it's just easier for me to take I guess.

I think she is mostly for the kids, and she's far from my favorite character of the series... She's pretty far down the list actually, but I'm not annoyed by her either.

And speaking of annoying, I really liked seeing Ziro the Hutt in the episode. I'm sure it pissed off many, but to me I thought he was great. I love the whole concept of him, and it's interesting how this may tie to the Clone Wars, separatists, and whatnot.

I really enjoyed the finale as well. Cad Bane did come off as pretty cool, and I liked the use of Aurra Sing as well (the commentary on SW.com mentions that we'll see more of her). Its going to be a long wait for Season 2, but it will be a good chance to re-watch a number of these episodes.

For the season overall, I agree with Scott, I'd give it a solid B+ as well. It wasn't perfect, but there were a lot of good episodes and the show overall was just "fun" to watch. I think there are some aspects that they touched on better than the prequel movies, particularly seeing Obi-Wan and Anakin as "good friends" as we were originally told in ANH. I never got much of that feeling in the prequels, aside from a scene or two in ROTS prior to Anakin's turn. They have also done a nice job of highlighting some lesser known characters and vehicles and made them look pretty cool as well. I was a little surprised we didn't see more "background" Jedi highlighted during the season, aside from Plo Koon (who we really didn't see past the Malevolence trilogy), Kit Fisto, Mace Windu, and to a lesser extent Luminara and Aayla Secura. I mean, we've likely got several seasons to go, but I don't think we've hardly seen Jedi like Ki Adi Mundi, Shaak Ti, SaeSee Tiin, and others. But, there's time for that.

I found Ahsoka more bothersome earlier on, but as the season has gone on I don't think its been quite as bad. They seem to have tried to tone her down a little bit more as the season went along, and also actually had her "mess up" a little bit here and there as well. For awhile, she was a little too unstoppable as a padawan - Anakin is the chosen one, not Ahsoka . Otherwise, she hasn't bothered me much - and like I said, has been better in the back half of the season. Looking towards season 2, I hope we see more Obi-Wan (not just in holograms), more Jedi, more of the bounty hunters, and some more clone-focused episodes as well. It was a good season, sad to see it end.

As far as new, Season 2 episodes, I think all we've heard is "Fall" - which can mean anywhere from September to November it seems in TV land. They are playing the season 1 episodes in repeats fairly liberally lately it seems though, still on each Friday at 8 (and the next Saturday morning) and I think they're starting to play them on weekday afternoons this week as well (and I also think they play an episode on the Saturday night adult swim lineup). There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what order the play them in though. I think they've played Bombad Jedi more than any other episode, and they also seem fond of the first four episodes of the season. I did see Lair of Grievous on this morning, that's one of my favorites.

So I realized with Anakin being more "calm", if you will, that Ahsoka has become the Anakin of the movies. A bit whiny, impatient, quick to anger ("No! That's what you said last time and now all my men are gone! My whole squadron!" You can totally hear Hayden Christensen saying that). I kind of like where she has been going lately with having to face failure.

« Last Edit: April 13, 2009, 04:59 PM by JediShawn »

Logged

"Look, a few minutes ago you said you didn't want to just wait here and be captured, now all you want to do is stay?""Marching into the detention area is not what I had in mind!"

IGN has a nice interview up with Dave Filoni reflecting on Season 1 and looking towards Season 2. I've noticed in a lot of interviews with Filoni he really talks about making/modeling the CW series after the "classic movies". He is also asked about the use of characters like Boba Fett and Quinlan Vos, although he is cagey with his answer.

I noticed the last few weeks that CN has been showing "fan favorite" episodes on Friday nights in the normal airing spot, at least until they start the "decoded" Clone Wars episodes in May. It just got me to thinking, what are the favorites among our group here? What are your top five or so episodes of the season? I liked the majority of them, but if I narrowed it to five (in no particular order) it would probably be:

EDIT: This was posted here accidentally. I intended to post this in anoth thread - sorry guys! (but it is a cool spot. The fact that the droid was rendered "realistically," apparently just for this spot makes me wonder what the series would have looked like if they would have tried to get away from the 'animated" look completely. )